


words like arrows (keep missing the target)

by absolutelywrite



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolutelywrite/pseuds/absolutelywrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson dies saving the world; Clint Barton would rip the world apart to get him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [kink meme prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/4305.html?thread=2509265#t2509265) (although the fill differs slightly in certain respects)
> 
> Not sure if this fic actually needs a warning for Graphic Violence but there's a scene in Chapter 3 that probably comes close, so I'm going to err on the side of caution on this one.
> 
> The Major Character Death warning obviously refers to canon character death in The Avengers film.

Clint has never been the brightest or the fastest or the strongest. He’s known from the beginning that Hawkeye has no place in the Avengers Initiative with guys like Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and Captain goddam America. For all their differences of opinion (Budapest was a fucking gong show, but it could have ended very differently – Clint tries not to think about it) he and Nat have always known that they’re only humans fighting beside gods, monsters and legends. The Black Widow exists in a class all of her own though, a super spy who could kill a man with her little finger. That just leaves Hawkeye, stumbling along after all of them, fighting to keep up.

But here’s the thing: Clint Barton does have a super power. He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive hawk, his bow didn’t give him the power of Apollo and when he gets angry enough to smash something, it’s his hand that breaks, not the wall. And it hurts like hell. It’s just that ever since he can remember, he’s had this drive. Without a goal, he lists and falls, but when he sees that red and white bullseye floating in front of him, the world narrows down to a single point. He takes aim. And lets fly.

All he needs is a target.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Clint meets Agent Coulson is… well, embarrassing really. Hawkeye may be crass and feckless at times (most of the time) but he is also perceptive as hell; you don’t get plucked out of jail and recruited specially by SHIELD if you don’t have an eye for this sort of thing. So the fact that Coulson fools him hook, line and sinker is irritating.

Anyways, it happens like this.

It’s right after Clint has joined up with SHIELD. He’s due to report in to his handler, some guy named Coulson. Or at least, he was due to check in something like twenty minutes ago. Whatever, it’s just some sort of stupid meet-and-greet, who gives a damn.

Clint swaggers up to the door marked ‘Agent Coulson’ and barges in without knocking. He’s an all or nothing guy, okay? Clint Barton doesn’t do things by halves: if he’s going to belong to a ridiculous secret intelligence agency, then he’s damn well going to act the part. There’s a guy in a suit and tie hovering over a filing cabinet in the corner, sorting through endless folders, looking for all the world like Nick Fury’s mild-mannered secretary. Dull.

“Hey buddy, is this Coulson guy around? I’ve got orders from the head honcho,” he gestures vaguely at the ceiling in a way that’s clearly meant to indicate ‘Nick goddam Fury,’ “to report down here A-sap.”

The temp straightens up and turns his full attention on Clint. And, huh. Now that he’s looking at the guy head-on, Clint can see the glint in his eyes and the ruthless quirk to his lips. Maybe not so tiresome after all.

“He’s right here actually.”

Clint waits a beat before confirming that yes, the corporate stooge in front of him is Agent Phil Coulson. He’d thought he was signing up to report to some bad-ass super spy and this is not at all what he was expecting. So he says as much.

Without blinking, the agent retorts, “Yes well, I was expecting a specialist, not some impudent brat with no respect for punctuality.”

Huh. 

_This_ , Clint thinks as he and Coulson take a moment to glare at each other in mutual dislike, _might be fun after all_.

*

They spend weeks doing fuck-all. Well, Clint spends most of his time at the shooting range, worshipping SHIELD’s vast array of projectile weaponry – there are always other agents there (no one at SHIELD sleeps apparently) but they give him a wide berth. Coulson does whatever the hell it is that Coulson does with his time. But sometimes he comes down to the range to babysit, and they snipe at each other with words, while Clint does the same with bullets. They’ve done this so many times that the banter doesn’t require any conscious effort, so the archer is hardly even listening when Coulson makes a snarky remark about his aim.

His deadpan response is automatic: “I’ve got eyes like a hawk, man.”

“Well. Nicely done, Hawkeye,” Coulson smirks down at him in that infuriating way of his. He probably practices that expression in front of the mirror every morning.

*

The nickname sticks. Fuck everything that has ever existed. 

* 

Their first assignment is to take out an AIM base in Newark – and what the fuck Advanced Idea Mechanics is doing in Newark, Clint will never know. Probably giving away exploding lollipops to school children or some equally half-assed, evil scheme. Sitting in the transport plane with the other agents is pure torture, Clint’s hands itch for his bow and he never lets his quiver out of his sight. Coulson is up front with the pilot, getting the lay of the land or some shit. When they land, Coulson gives the order for him to find a rooftop where he can see all the action and station himself there.

Clint almost breathes a sigh of relief. He always feels vaguely claustrophobic in skirmishes where he doesn’t have a good vantage point. Archers are pretty useless in melee combat, even if Clint Barton does have a couple tricks up his sleeves. He had kind of thought Coulson would want to micromanage, pull his strings and order him around, so this level of freedom is a nice surprise. There’s no way a desk-job guy like that would be able to understand how to best use someone with Hawkeye’s skill set on the field anyways.

He finds a good spot to make his nest (fuck it, now he’s even doing the stupid bird thing) and waits. They maintain radio silence until Coulson’s unexpectedly harsh voice barks out the location of the targets. It jars Clint for a moment, but then he recovers and lets loose a volley of exploding arrows. 

The street erupts into chaos. Thankfully, SHIELD seems to have evacuated any nearby civilians, which just leaves agents and AIM lackeys taking cover behind cars and debris, firing on each other relentlessly. Hawkeye plucks off stragglers, lobs arrows fitted with canisters of knockout gas into clusters of AIM personnel and keeps his eyes whipping along the lines of fire, noting groups of agents who need backup and cover.

He loses track of his surroundings, the passing of time, everything but the strain in his arms, the solid weight of the bow in his hand, the targets on the ground. But suddenly, something unexpected enters his field of vision. There’s a little girl peeking out from the opening of a dark alley, dirt on her face and mud staining her knees. Through the scope on his bow, he can see how wide her eyes are, the tear tracks on her cheeks. 

In a split second, he sees her dart out from the alley and straight into the firefight. As he frantically scans the street, he sees her target: a slightly mangled teddy bear in the middle of the road.

Fuck.

He whips his hand back to the special arrows he’d brought along on a whim (Clint had laughed in his face when Coulson handed over the quiver of grappling arrows) and lets one fly. It hits the building opposite and, without thinking about what he’s doing, Clint slings his bow across his back, grabs the grappling line in both hands and jumps.

He has one fraction of a moment where he thinks he hears Coulson yell into his communicator, “Goddammit Barton, what –” before it’s just the wind and adrenaline rushing in his ears.

By some miracle of angles and trajectory, he hits the ground and rolls, only gaining a couple scrapes and scratches for his recklessness. The girl is only a few feet away from him, curled around her bear, shaking. He throws his arms around her, shielding her with his body –

There’s a shot. Suddenly red stains his vision. But he can’t feel – 

From out of nowhere, Coulson is suddenly in front of them, planting an enormous shield in the ground ( _a shield for a SHIELD agent_ , Clint thinks giddily). Then come the charges, in a quick, lopsided circle around them. Blinking lights. Faster. And – 

They fall, taking a significant chunk of the street with them, landing haphazardly in the sewers. Clint feels like he left his lungs back on the surface, can’t catch his breath, can’t move his leg properly. But Coulson has the girl in one arm and the other is supporting Clint as they stumble through the network of tunnels.

When they make it back out into the bright sunlight, it’s the best sight Clint has ever seen – even if it is New Jersey.

*

Turns out that Agent Phil Coulson is nobody’s mild-mannered secretary. He is a total frickin badass. Who knew?

* 

It takes months for Clint to fully recover. Whatever god Clint has pissed off the least recently must be watching over him though, because he’s out of the SHIELD medical facility in less than a week. They discharged him when he started using any and every object in arms reach for target practice on a particularly hideous patch of wallpaper. So he grabs his crutches, grits his teeth and hauls himself back to his dingy, little SHIELD HQ apartment. It would be depressing if it weren’t such a relief to be home.

It takes all of two minutes for Coulson to find him. Clint knows it as soon as he hears the precise knocking on his door. 

He drags himself out of bed, yanks open the door and, before Coulson can even get a word out, demands: “The girl. Is she okay?” He's seen the files, sure, the briefing package someone put together and left on his hospital bed for him to read, but he needs to hear it in person.

“She’s fine, safe with her family. Most likely traumatized, but SHIELD will be footing the bill for any therapy she could ever want or need, so I think she’ll do all right,” Coulson gives him an evaluating look that he can’t identify. “A stunt like that, Barton…”

“Yeah, yeah, reckless, foolhardy, moronic, I know all right?” Clint snarls. He feels restless, reaches out a hand for the comforting weight of his bow but only gets the cold bars of his crutches. Softer, he asks: “But what was I supposed to do?”

Coulson gives him that measured look again, and really, Clint is too exhausted to deal with this shit right now. He turns to go pass out in his room, when he hears:

“You made the right call, Clint. Good work.”

By the time he turns around again, all he sees is Coulson’s back, striding down the hallway.

*

After that, things change. It’s months before Coulson clears Clint for active duty again. But finally, _finally_ he gets back out to the shooting range, bow in one hand, quiver in the other, and everything is right in the world. He gets started strengthening muscles he hasn’t used properly in months, working through the mild but still present ache in his calf. Crouching in sniper position is going to be a problem for a while longer. None of that matters though: he’s back and ready to go.

But in those three months, Clint has come to an important realization. Or two.

Firstly, he and Phil have developed a sort of grudging, mutual respect for each other. It started with the agent dropping in on Clint’s physical therapy – he thought Coulson was just babysitting him again, but when his handler started bringing paperwork to work on while Clint did his exercises, he realized that Coulson’s presence was meant to be a sincere gesture of support, which might actually be even weirder . Then there are the nights that Clint finds himself in Phil’s office, totally owning at Angry Birds (this gets a wry eyebrow raise from Coulson – ha frickin ha, Hawkeye playing Angry Brids, yeah yeah, whatever) while the agent bitches about the latest idiot on SHIELD’s payroll who can’t correctly fill out an incident report to save his life. 

Secondly, damn does Phil Coulson look good in a suit. Clint has no idea how he thought the man was dull at first glance.

That second one is a bit harder to explain. Well, not really. It is the truth, after all. Still, Clint hasn’t had an inappropriate crush on an authority figure since he was 13 years old – but damn, he remembers Ms. Whitman’s sexy-librarian smile, even to this day.

It has to do with Coulson’s freaky intense focus. When he’s filing or doing paperwork, or any of the other mundane tasks he does around HQ (mostly because he seems to be the only one competent enough to do them properly) he devotes his entire attention to the task at hand. And if Clint interrupts him (which he does, all the time, pulling his pigtails) then he turns that intense gaze on him, quirked eyebrow dryly demanding, “Yes, Barton? What was it that was so important it couldn’t wait five minutes?”

Clint craves that razor-sharp focus, wants it trained on him constantly.

He wants.

Unfortunately, while he has always known exactly _what he wants_ , _getting_ it is a bit more complicated.

* 

After a mission that went to hell and back (another shady organization making a bid at the super soldier serum – Christ, would these idiots just stop trying to make that shit?) Clint saunters right into the towers of paperwork heaped around Phil’s office and demands: “Get your coat, we’re going to a bar. Because even you need some downtime after a shit show like that.”

Phil gives him his usual dry look, but it’s lacking its usual edge, jaw tight with exhaustion. “If you say so, Barton.”

They end up in a dive bar, the one Clint always finds himself in after the bad jobs. The missions where, no matter what they do, civilians get caught in the crossfire, the plan falls to pieces and agents wind up in medical (or worse). Phil orders a scotch. The bartender knows Clint well enough to bring a glass and a bottle of whiskey without being asked. 

“How do you do it?” he asks around the comforting taste of whiskey on his tongue. “The stress, endless paperwork…” he pauses, doesn’t mention the letters of condolence he knows are sitting on the corner of Phil’s desk. “How do you keep doing this job, day in and day out, that no one will ever thank you for?”

Phil stares down into his glass. When he looks up, his face is lined with a bone-deep weariness that startles Clint. “It’s not about the pressure or the lack of gratitude. It’s about doing a job that has to be done. SHIELD is doing important work. We eliminate threats that the world is not equipped to deal with; we protect people. _We save lives_.”

“Yeah,” Clint mumbles into his glass. “I guess we do.” It makes a hollow clunk when he sets it back down on the bar.

A bottle or two later and he’s leading the bar in a rousing rendition of Piano Man as Phil gasps with laughter against his shoulder.

*

Hawkeye has a keen eye: he isn’t an expert marksman for nothing. But in the face of Agent Inscrutable, he comes up with nothing every time. He has no idea what Coulson is thinking, what he does in his down time, hell, he doesn’t even know what kind of food Coulson likes.

So asking him to dinner is out, then.

* 

Christmas has come early. Or possibly Clint’s birthday. Either way, when he barges into Phil’s office today, for the first time in the sixth months since he joined SHIELD, the man, who is such a workaholic that the other SHIELD goons are convinced his first name is actually Agent, is not working. There’s a binder open on his desk, filled with… trading cards?

“Coulson, man, what are you _doing_?” Clint crows (fuckin’ birds again) as he looks gleefully down at the slightly yellowed Captain America collectable cards in the pristine binder, meticulously organized and perfect.

Phil shoots him the most dignified look he can muster and it’s a pretty good effort, considering the sudden reveal of his supremely nerdy and not-at-all-attractive hobby. Nope, not even a little bit.

“They’re _vintage_ , all right?”

“Sure, sure. Let me guess, did you also collect the _vintage_ action figures, comics and all that junk?” 

He doesn’t reply. Clint almost reaches over to ruffle Phil’s hair. 

“Well, come on then, let’s see your collection. Is this really what you do to _relax_?” He swears he can see a faint flush, high up on the agent’s neck. It may be the most adorable thing he’s ever seen.

Oh.

_Fuck_.

Well, he’s pretty much doomed.

Phil shows him the binder, filled with bits and pieces of memorabilia that he must’ve been collecting his entire life. For the next week, Clint ribs him mercilessly about his obsession with Captain America. If he feels the slightest twinge of jealousy at the idea of a young Coulson’s childish adoration of an American legend, he squashes it ruthlessly.

*

Love. Well isn’t that cliché as all fuckin’ hell.

Clint Barton has never done anything the easy way in his life. Even to become a hero, he had to hold up a bank and go to jail first. He falls into love feet first, arms flailing, no idea which way is up. He tries to claw his way out, but only ends up falling in deeper.

Oh well. Denial wasn’t that nice a place anyhow.

* 

Clint is trying to catch up on some sleep when he hears the sirens. He barrels out of his room, pausing only to snatch up the bag of armaments he keeps by the door, slipping in his ear-piece as he sprints for the stairs to Phil’s office. The alarms blare louder now that he’s in the hall and he swears the shear level of noise could shake the foundations of the building.

As soon as he gets the comm-link in, he hears Coulson swearing. “- better get your ass down here _now_ , Barton, you hear –”

“Reading you loud and clear, boss,” he pants as he skids around a corner and almost runs headlong into the agent in question. “What’s the sitch?”

“There’s been a break-in,” Coulson grits out, sliding another clip into his hand gun as they careen towards the elevator. “An infiltrator disabled all of our security systems and got out with some sensitive documents. We’ve got agents in pursuit–”

“Wait, sensitive documents?” Clint demands, dumbstruck. “You still keep hard copies of that shit lying around?”

They reach the elevator and Phil jabs the up button impatiently. “Apparently, we do. They were scheduled to be shredded months ago but apparently the _witless ape_ whose job that was –”

“Gotcha,” Clint makes an abortive, restless gesture towards the elevator, which is meant to convey: ‘fuck this shit.’ “Stairs.”

They both lunge through the doorway and vault up the spiralling flights of steps.

“We’ve got a chopper on the roof,” Phil huffs out, taking the stairs two at a time. “I need your eyes up there, in case our agents lose the infiltrator.”

Finally, they reach the top and race out into the mid-day sunlight. Coulson is already yelling, “Go, go, go!” into his communicator, before they even leap inside.

Moments later, they’re airborne, following a trail of non-responsive SHIELD agents. Coulson is cursing over the comm-link (and Clint has never heard this much profanity from him in such a small amount of time) as they listen to every agent who engages the thief, go down. Finally the trail goes cold, but Hawkeye has been scanning the ground, cars packed bumper to bumper on the roads, taking stock of the ebb and flow of mid-afternoon pedestrian traffic in the streets of New York. He spots a flurry of unexpected movement, suspicious amongst the sedate movements of the crowd exiting the subway tunnels and –

“There,” he points to a flash of red hair in the sea of people.

“Our closest agents are minutes out,” Coulson frustration seeping into his tone. “By the time they get on the scene –”

“Send me down on a line, I’ll pursue on foot,” Clint offers, already tracking the figure’s movements, estimating their path and the route he’ll needs to take to head them off.

Coulson looks at him like he can’t decide if Clint is insane or a genius. “You heard the man,” he barks at the pilot (and that no-nonsense, command voice of his never fails to send a shiver down Clint’s back) “get the chopper as low as possible so Agent Barton can swing down.”

Clint looks down at the SHIELD-issue sweatshirt he’d thrown on back in his room (and why a secret agency needs shirts with their logo imprinted on it is something he will never understand) and looks over at the pilot speculatively. “And toss me your shirt, when you can spare a sec without crashing, yeah?”

He rips off his own shirt, catching the one the pilot throws at him and throwing it on hastily, trying not to take his eyes off of the fleeing figure for a second longer than necessary. It’s a bit snug, but it’ll have to do. When he spares a glance, Phil has his eyes on the ground too, but he’s holding out a line that’s attached to a crank in the back of the helicopter.

“That roof, take the fire escape down, you should be able to catch up. Keep your earpiece in, we’ll continue monitoring from above,” Phil looks up as Clint slides the harness around his hips and clips the line onto it. “And Barton… good luck.”

Clint offers him a roguish wink. “I don’t need luck, boss.” He casts one longing glance at his bow and quiver before snatching up a handgun and shoving it into the waistband of his jeans.

Then he’s jumping, falling, the line slowing his descent but not by much. His feet slam down onto the roof and he rolls with it, unclips the line and careens over the edge onto the fire escape. He crashes down the cramped flights of stairs, vaults over the last railing and lets gravity do the work for him. On the ground, Hawkeye takes a moment to orient himself and get his breath back before he slips out of the alley, blending seamlessly into the crowd.

It’s harder to get a feel for the patterns in the crushing mob of people when he’s stuck in the middle of it, but he’s got Phil in his ear offering clipped directions, so he focuses on scanning the crowd ahead for the telltale glimpse of red hair. 

Suddenly, he hears a commotion up ahead.

“Hey, that kid tried to steal my wallet!” a middle-aged man is shouting at a teenager in a hoodie.

Against his better judgment (when has he ever let that get in his way?) Clint stops to watch. The man has grabbed the teen by one of his hunched shoulders, shaking, threatening to call the cops. The kid looks like he just wants the ground to swallow him where he stands. His face is gaunt and tired in a way that Clint remembers seeing in his own reflection, years ago.

He remembers how tough it is to survive on your own, with no one watching your back.

Just as he’s about to step forward and say something, a woman emerges from the crowd. All Clint sees for a moment is her brilliant red hair. _Bingo_.

“Jeremy! I can’t take my eyes off of you for one second,” she grouses, stepping between the pair. Turning to the man, she smiles ruefully. “Teenagers, you know? Always think they need to be the center of attention, no matter what idiocy is required to get it. And I’m afraid my brother is more idiotic than most.”

The man is so captivated by her winning smile that he completely misses the slack-jawed look of shock the teenager is giving her. Clint doesn’t though.

“He gave back the wallet, didn’t he? Good, now Jeremy, apologize to this gentleman,” she narrows her eyes as the boy mumbles something incoherent. “Well, that’s the best we’ll get, I think. I’m terribly sorry for the trouble –”

“No harm done,” he hastily interjects. “Seeing as everything as everything was returned, there’s no need to press charges –”

She puts her hands on his arm in a companionable fashion that is so calculated, it almost takes Clint’s breath away. “You’re too kind. Don’t worry though, when I tell our mother what he’s been up to,” she glares at ‘Jeremy,’ “he’ll be grounded ‘til he’s thirty. Come on, let’s go home before you cause more trouble.” She yanks on the kid’s arm and they disappear down a side-street, leaving the middle-aged man in their wake.

Clint follows them, trying to look casual. As he turns a corner, he pulls up short so he can listen to their conversation without being seen.

“You didn’t have to do that, you crazy –” 

“Didn’t have to. You had the situation under control, right?” comes the woman’s voice. Her cultured tone has vanished, leaving her syllables brusque and short.

“Oh, go to –”

“Look kid, you don’t owe me anything. I don’t like bullies, plain and simple,” she pauses. “Take this and go. Buy yourself a sandwich.”

“How did you get his wallet –”

“Because I’m good enough not to get caught. Try it sometime.”

Clint faintly hears the slap of worn running shoes on the pavement. They stop briefly at the other end of the alley.

“Hey lady… thanks.”

Clint doesn’t hear any reply she might make, his attention on Coulson’s faint voice murmuring over the comm-link: “No witnesses at either end of the alley, Barton. Take your shot.”

In under a second, Hawkeye has the gun out and is peering around the corner. The infiltrator has her back to him, the perfect target.

Hawkeye trains the weapon on her. His finger tenses on the trigger, ready to pull –

– and he doesn’t.

At the crucial moment, Clint pauses, remembering her voice as she told the kid to take the money and scram. Do all trained killers have a soft-spot for down-on-their-luck street kids, these days? Is sympathy for the underdog, the hopeless cases, something they all share? He had no idea he was such a stereotype. But the bad guys are always evil and ruthless, aren’t they?

That single second is all it takes.

In a whirlwind of movement, the enemy agent turns, sees him standing there and lunges at him, knocking the gun from his hands. He hears Coulson’s voice in his ear (“Clint, what –”) but he can’t spare the time to respond, or even think, dodging the flurry of fists and kicks the woman throws at him. He’s bigger than she is, has more muscle behind his punches, even though right now that feels like a disadvantage as she somersaults over his head and sweeps his legs out from under him. But Clint spent most of his formative years in the circus and he picked up a few tricks from his fellow carnies: he grabs her shoulder as he goes down, yanking her along with him and they roll until they hit a dumpster. Panting, he lays there, arms pinned to his sides by her legs, one of her hands at his clavicle, digging her thumb into his windpipe, the other holding a vicious blade to his throat.

“ _Tell me_ ,” she hisses, hard-as-flint eyes boring into his. “Why didn’t you take the shot? You _had me_. So _why_?”

He blinks up at her. “What– no, why do you care? I’m pretty much at your mercy here, why waste time on a quick Q and A?” Well, his survival instincts have never quite managed to filter what comes out of his mouth. 

The knife presses a little harder against his jugular, still not enough to draw blood.

“Your life is in the hands of a soul-less killer who could kill you with a flick of her wrist and you want to waste your last words on banter?” she laughs, sharp and cold like the dagger against his neck. “Are all SHIELD agents this careless with their own lives?”

Clint shrugs – a careful maneuver, so he doesn’t jostle the blade’s deadly edge. “Didn’t look all that soul-less from where I was standing.”

A less observant man wouldn’t notice, but Clint’s business is being watchful. So he sees the fraction of a second where the infiltrator freezes (none of it shows in her face, only the tightening of her knuckles on the blade’s handle betrays her) and knows that he’s hit a nerve.

But then she’s back in his face, snarling: “What would you know? We’re all just trained assassins, aren’t we?”

“No –” he starts but she cuts him off – 

“We’re _not_ killers? Very convincing, from the man with the gun.”

“Well, killers, sure. But not _soul-less_ ,” he catches her impassive glance, hopes against hope that he’s right. “I don’t know many soul-less assassins who blow their getaway, just to make sure some street kid doesn’t have to spend the night in a cell.”

In an instant, the muscles in her hands tense so much that Clint is surprised she doesn’t break the handle of her weapon. But a second later, her fingers deliberately loosen and her lips curl into a condescending smirk. “Well, isn’t that cute. I don’t know what fairytale they’ve been reading you at SHIELD, but let me tell you something, _agent_. I’m not a repentant sinner, some damsel in distress that you can save and reform. I chose this life and I like what I do. You think that just because I’m a _woman_ I must feel pity for a child –”

“No, I think that because you’re a _human being_ , you don’t like seeing the little guy get pushed around by some bully. Well, neither do I. I just think that maybe you might be on the wrong side to be rooting for the helpless underdog.”

The spy doesn’t move a muscle, but he can feel the pressure of the dagger at his throat ease slightly. She has a considering look on her face, like he’s just said something she’s been thinking for years, but never expressed out loud. Clint takes this as a good sign to continue.

“So you have some red on your ledger – who doesn’t. But I think I might have a way for you to wipe it out.”

The silence is so heavy it’s hard to breathe for a second (or that could just be the weight of the enemy agent on his ribcage, it’s hard to be sure). But slowly, with agonizing deliberation, the infiltrator sets down her knife.

“Do you really have that much conviction that you’re on the right side?” she mutters, eyes still hard, deadly hands (a killer’s hands) still poised at his neck.

“I don’t,” he admits, the only honest answer he can give. “I just do my job and hope that at the end of the day, my ledger is a little better off than it was when I started.”

Moving carefully, eyes trained on him intently, letting him know with the tension coiled in her limbs that if he runs now, he’ll be worse off than if he had fallen victim to her dagger, she stands.

“Look,” he keeps his hands carefully raised as he follows her up, no threat, see, harmless as can be. “I’m unarmed. Take my gun. I’m removing my communication device –” (he can hear Coulson growling even as he removes the comm-link, “Barton, _don’t you dare_ –”) “– you have the advantage. SHIELD is going to be on top of us in a minute, if that. Let’s get out of here, go somewhere we can talk. Coffee, maybe?”

The look she gives him is unimpressed and dubious at best. “And what possible reason do I have to trust you?”

Hawkeye puts every ounce of the cockiness he doesn’t feel into his smirk. “None at all.” Abruptly, he sticks out his hand. “The name’s Clint Barton.”

Finally, the agent smiles. Far from being comforting, it kind of makes Clint want to run: is it possible to bare that many teeth all at once?

“Natasha Romanoff.”

“Well, Natasha, it is my genuine pleasure. How do you feel about Coffeebucks?”

*

This is how Clint Barton ends up sitting across a plastic table from a deadly, Russian super spy, sipping daintily on a strawberries ‘n’ cream frappuccino. It is possibly the most surreal moment of his life.

Natasha wants to know why he thinks SHIELD would even consider employing her after she stole some extremely delicate information from them. But Clint knows that SHIELD collects the best of the best, agents who are exemplary in their fields.

So. What’s the one thing that could be possibly more impressive than stealing top secret documents from right under SHIELD’s nose?

*

Agent Coulson pinches the bridge of his nose and inhales slowly, visibly trying to reign in his irritation. Clint, sprawled out alone at the same plastic table he and Natasha had occupied not an hour earlier, is fascinated with the ticking vein in his forehead. The guy needs some quality relaxation time, maybe a massage.

“Agent Barton. Are you _seriously_ telling me that you completely dropped off the radar with an enemy agent, intentionally removing all communications and tracking devices from your person, for the express purpose of convincing her to _re_ -infiltrate our headquarters and _return_ the intelligence she stole in an effort to impress Director Fury and get recruited to join SHIELD?”

Clint pauses, pretending to think about it for a second. “Well, when you put it that way, sir, that does sound like what just happened.”

Coulson huffs a bone-weary sigh and slumps down into the vacant chair, the fond exasperation in his furrowed brow making Clint grin unrepentantly.

“Are you feeling all right, sir? You look a bit stressed. Frappuccino?” he offers his straw, totally deadpan.

Phil simply glares, probably trying to remember which form needs to be filed when a SHIELD agent goes temporarily rogue and recruits an enemy assassin to join up over frozen beverages. The sad thing is: that form probably does exist. SHIELD’s records are frighteningly detailed like that.

* 

Everything settles back into routine after that. Well, sort of. 

Coulson has a chat with him (lectures the fuck out of him, more like) about disobeying orders in the field and recklessly endangering himself. He makes all of the appropriate noises, nods along, but really, you can’t argue with results. 

Of course, Phil has already put together a file for him to study – or, you know, use as a paperweight. Natasha Romanoff, codename: Black Widow (seriously? Is he the only one that got stuck with such a lame codename?). Apparently her origins are a total mystery, SHIELD’s only records are a list of scattered sightings and assassinations over the past ten years. Other than that, she’s a ghost.

But life moves on. Now, instead of training with the other SHIELD minions, he spars with Natasha a couple of times a week and gets his ass handed to him for his efforts. Outside of the ring, however, the scales shift in Hawkeye’s favor: no matter how good she is with a gun, she can’t outshoot Clint Barton and that is a fact. He accepts his victory graciously (in between bouts of gloating) and tells her not to take it too hard, no one beats the master marksman. 

The raised eyebrow she gives him in return is almost as unimpressed as one of Coulson’s most sardonic expressions.

He also starts spending some of his evenings playing Angry Birds in Nat’s quarters while she sharpens her throwing knives, or cleans her guns or whatever she does to unwind. They make idle chatter – it’s mostly Clint doing the talking, Nat holds her cards pretty close to her chest and he respects that. So he talks to fill the silence, fills it with details of his upbringing in the Midwest, running away to join the circus, then skulking around the streets after that went sour, even the heist that landed him in jail before SHIELD found him (if he doesn’t ever talk about his family, Nat either doesn’t notice or is kind enough not to mention it). He has a bit of a checkered past. But it’s what got him to this point, so even if he could… Clint wouldn’t change any of it. At SHIELD, he’s finally making a difference, although it’s taken him this long to realize.

He’s happy here. And he’ll be damned if he screws it up now.

*

The pretence of calm doesn’t last long. One evening, he goes to Natasha’s rooms to find that all of her possessions have been completely cleared out: it’s not like she ever put photos up on the walls or anything, but her weaponry is all missing and that is even more telling. He’s about to alert Coulson, but the alarms beat him to it.

“Intruder Alert: Sector G17. Lockdown protocols initiated. Intruder Alert: Sector –”

Well, the way Clint sees it, this is mostly (if not entirely) his fault. Coulson will probably tell him so when he gets down to G17.

The elevator is out of commission, so he flies down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. The door slams open and he skids out into the darkened hallway, red emergency lights flickering on behind him as he runs. He hears the sounds of combat from up ahead, but doesn’t stop, doesn’t realize until he’s already rounded the corner that it’s – 

His thought process grinds to an abrupt halt.

Coulson. Red dots flecking his chin and his crisp white shirt, nose bent at an unnatural angle, blood pouring from an exposed gash on his arm…

“Last warning, Agent Romanoff. _Stand down_.”

But his other hand is extended, pistol trained on the crouching figure a few feet away: _Natasha_.

When she laughs, the sound chills Clint to his bones.

* 

This is the first time they really face the Black Widow, but it isn’t the last. It isn’t the worst either, not by a long shot.

If he had thought that his first fight with the Black Widow was brutal, he was seriously mistaken. He remembers with frightening clarity how _feral_ she looks in this moment, mouth twisted into a savage snarl, eyes cold and dead. Beyond reason.

Between him and Coulson they somehow subdue her – even though they outnumber and outgun her, she’s still a formidable martial artist and has a sort of berserker rage building up behind her eyes. Hawkeye and Coulson aren’t slouches in hand-to-hand, but they aren’t even in her league, not on their own. Together, they manage to get her strapped to a table in an interrogation room, sedated, and Coulson finally shows him her real file (which is so above his clearance level, he can’t even count that high).

Natalia Romanova, born in Volgograd, a fire, an orphanage, and something about a red room…

Clint skims the file, frowns, and goes back to actually read the thing.

An organization, an offshoot of the KGB that kept operating in secret after the USSR fell, conditioning orphaned, little girls into becoming Black Widow Operatives, ruthless secret agents with no wills of their own.

He remembers his own childhood, the foster homes, the circus, then later the streets, his brother…

He feels like he might be sick.

*

Clint was never good at making friends as a child. To this day, he’s still emotionally prickly, and frankly, kind of an asshole. But he’d felt a connection with Natasha, like on some level they were the same: whatever piece of him is just broken deep down inside, that’s what he sees in her.

See, Hawkeye may be living this glamorous James Bond life, expert archer, agent of SHIELD, but Clint Barton still remembers what it’s like to be manipulated, to have every good thing you do twisted into something awful. These are the lessons he learned at the hands of his father, his mentors, Barney… even now, living a life he had never even dreamed of, he’s still kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Any day now, he’ll discover that Nick Fury is actually a super-villain and all of Clint’s accomplishments at SHIELD have just been stones paving the road to world domination.

It’s a baseless fear (because Clint had to make sure when he joined up that SHIELD was legit – no one knows the ventilation system like he does, no one sees as much as he does) that still keeps him up at night sometimes. But this, his nightmare, is the world Natasha lives in. 

For months, they keep her in lockdown.

Her Red Room programming runs deep: there are days when she’s fine, days when he can sit beside her in her new, secure quarters, when they can exchange words and she can pretend that she’s not smiling at his dumb jokes. Then there are the days when she lashes out, no control, throws herself at the walls, vacant, desperate for escape, the Black Widow pulling the strings…

Coulson is there throughout it all, with a team of what Clint thinks must be the best shrinks and analysts on SHIELD’s payroll. They might even be good enough to help her, if any of them were brave enough to so much as enter her room. So Clint knows that when Nat starts to recover – when her relapses become few and far between, when she starts going days, weeks, without flashbacks that end with him in a stranglehold, at her mercy, Coulson’s gun against her temple – her recovery is due to no one but herself.

* 

Finally, after months without an incident and incessant wheedling from Clint, Coulson declares Agent Romanoff fit for active duty.

The first thing they do is hit the bar.

After a few rounds, they end up in a booth in the back with a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. Natasha keeps grimacing at the taste and promises to show him what real vodka tastes like. Despite this, she drinks it like water, tossing back shot after shot while Clint scrambles to keep up.

“Pass me your glass,” she says, but he thinks she means, thank you.

*

By the time Coulson tracks them down, Clint is slumped bonelessly against Nat, while she teaches him to swear in Russian. He thinks the inebriation makes his appalling accent and mispronunciations sound better but, judging by the way Natasha is shaking with silent laughter, probably not.

“Hiya, boss,” he mumbles, proud that he’s only slurring his words slightly.

The agent’s mouth is quirked in amusement. Or maybe it’s a grimace of irritation. It’s hard to tell in the dark lighting.

“Barton, it’s past your bedtime, don’t you think?”

Clint mutters something sullen into Nat’s shoulder and watches through half-closed eyes as the two of them exchange a look that is more fond than exasperated. Probably.

He tries to ignore the way Phil’s presence is making something warm and golden curl against his ribcage.

“Well, if you’re here to collect him, then I’ll head out,” Natasha dislodges him with a deliberate shrug. When she stands to help him out of the booth, she doesn’t sway or stumble even a little bit. _Bitch_.

“Language, Barton,” she scolds dryly as she hauls him to his feet. Like she hadn’t just been coaching him on how to say unspeakable things about someone’s mother in Russian two minutes ago.

He’s searching for a retort when Natasha jostles him unceremoniously into Phil. He teeters dangerously before his hands land on broad shoulders (how did he never realize how strong Phil’s shoulders were?) and it occurs to him that he and Coulson haven’t really talked since the whole business with the Black Widow started.

Then it occurs to him that Nat is giving him the perfect opening, a chance to walk back to base, draped over Phil’s shoulders, hey, he’s drunk, he can’t walk straight, this is mostly not a ploy to cop a feel– oh. 

_Oh_. 

Well, the Widow is just all kinds of conniving tonight.

As he throws an arm across shoulders that stretch for miles and Coulson steers him out of the bar, he offers Natasha a roguish wink.

She doesn’t return the gesture, but her answering smirk is almost as good.

*

It takes far longer than it should for them to get back to SHIELD HQ – mostly due to the fact that the street is swaying treacherously under Clint’s feet.

Note to self: never, under any circumstances, try to out drink Natasha. _Ever_.

Phil huffs out a laugh and it occurs to Clint that maybe his brain-to-mouth filter is not working as well as it should be. Or at all, hell.

They make it into the elevator and stand in companionable silence until the doors open and Clint groans at the sight of more endless, tilting hallway. 

But Phil hauls his arm across his back again and they set off. Clint is still leaning on those _shoulders_ when they stop in front of his door and he wonders dizzily what SHIELD’s policy on fraternization is.

Phil tenses abruptly and carefully brushes him off, so that he can open the door.

Tone serious, he says: “Our work is extraordinarily dangerous and as such, agents of SHIELD often find themselves in situations which civilians may be unable to cope with. So if two agents get involved… we tend to look the other way.”

The liquid gold in his chest spreads all the way to his fingers and toes. He _really_ hopes he remembers this conversation in the morning.

But Phil keeps talking: “Some people prefer not to mix work with their personal lives, though.” Clint nods, barely listening, tries to find Phil’s arms with his hands but misses. “You might want to ask Agent Romanoff how she feels about fraternization.”

With that, Coulson heads back the way they came, leaving Clint standing in front of his open door, brow furrowed in confusion, arm still slightly outstretched. As he tumbles into bed and into dreamless sleep, he wonders what Natasha had to do with any of that conversation.

*

He doesn’t remember in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The warning for graphic violence refers to a specific scene in this chapter. The scene is very short (two paragraphs at most) but I've included a warning just in case.

The three of them slowly learn to work together, since Coulson is the only handler who isn’t terrified out of his mind of the Black Widow and he’s also the only one willing to tolerate Hawkeye’s incessant needling for extended periods of time. Somehow, along the line, they become a team.

Clint isn’t always a great judge of character, but he likes to think that he learns from his mistakes. No matter what her past was like, he believes that the person Nat is now is someone who will have his back. And Coulson has never let him down, not even when he was convinced the man was a corporate stooge.

Phil, Natasha: these are the people Clint trusts to have his back. When he closes his eyes, he sees them like targets behind his lids – his arms tense in anticipation, ready to knock back an arrow and fire if anyone gets close enough to harm either of them.

Usually it’s Widow and Hawkeye, back-to-back, facing down the villain-of-the-week, while Agent Coulson coordinates their movements, provides recon and support. But sometimes, due to some unforeseen circumstance, he joins them in the field and the three of them function like a well-oiled machine, flawless, seamless in their precision and relentlessness.

These are Clint’s favourite times. Well, that’s not exactly true. His favourite times are still the quiet moments after their debrief, when he sprawls out on the couch in Phil’s office, playing Angry Birds and snarking back and forth as Phil does paperwork.

He’s slowly working up the nerve. He’s noticed that sometimes Phil watches him carefully, consideringly, when he thinks Clint isn’t looking. Maybe he has a shot at this after all.

*

Then Tony Stark says, “I am Iron Man,” on national television and the whole world goes _insane_.

*

For the next several months, one mission blends into another. Vigilantes start popping up across the world: super-villains, wanna-be heroes who have no goddam idea what they’re doing, utter chaos. There are mad scientists aiming for world conquest with evil weather machines in Australia, mutated alligators crawling through the sewers of Paris, giant rock golems in a mine in Saskatchewan (Seriously. What. The. Fuck.) then Budapest… then the agonizing wait until Fury finally calls him in to get his ass down to New Mexico.

Phil needs backup. Clint goes.

*

Everything gets a little crazy after that – from hammers and Gods of thunder to magical cubes and underground SHIELD bunkers – but Clint isn’t worried. They always pull through somehow.

Then Loki stabs him, blue fire scorching his chest, bleeding into his eyes.

“ _You have heart_.”

And everything goes black.

*

Loki asks what the Tesseract showed him.

He replies: “My next target.”

It’s a target, a goal, a mission, but it isn’t his. He can’t see Natasha anymore. Not even Phil –

When he finally wakes up with Nat on the helicarrier, the world feels brittle and strange, like someone broke it into tiny pieces and put them back together wrong.

The first question on his tongue is _where is he_ but he bites it back, lets it die in his throat, because the answer is written all over Natasha’s face.

*

She tells him of course. Not how many agents died as a result of his actions, but the only one that matters. Christ, how egotistical is he, thinking like that? He can’t seem to care. Not now.

He finds the cards, still on the briefing table where Fury had carelessly thrown them. There’s a tremor in his fingers as he picks them up.

Back in his apartment bathroom, he gets an old rag, some soap, and tries to gently scrub the red flecks off the faded, cardboard. The cloth comes away crimson with dried blood; the fragile paper tears under his violently shaking hands.

When Natasha finds him, he’s on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, the ragged pieces of the card littering the tile around him.

*

There’s red on his ledger. But this is one stain he can never wipe out.

*

Falling.

Clint has a split second, wind screaming in his ears, ground rushing up to meet him, where he remembers Newark and, with a wrenching feeling in his chest, thinks: _Phil_. Then the grapple catches and he swings through the window, crashing to the floor in a heap.

Everything hurts.

But not as much as Loki’s going to hurt when Hawkeye is done with him.

*

It’s been a month since the world turned upside down and Clint watched everything fall to pieces around him.

In that month, the Avengers have been helping with various reconstruction projects around the city, trying to fix a world that has broken in two. The battle with the Chitauri has changed everything: this was an invasion on a scale like nothing before, broadcast internationally, and the panic that it incites spreads like wildfire. Within hours websites have sprung up proclaiming that the end is nigh, repent, repent, blah blah blah. Even after the dust has settled, conspiracy theorist are still clamouring over the possibility of further alien threats, the likelihood that this is all just a scheme on behalf of the government to manipulate the pubic, whatever sensationalist garbage will get them on the news. SHIELD does damage control, same as always.

It’s been a month since the world turned upside down and every night for a month, Clint has had bad dreams. Dreams of blue fire, Loki’s laugh and Phil’s blood all over his hands –

Well, until he stopped sleeping, that is. He finds that if he sneaks into the firing range late at night and just keeps shooting until his hands are numb and his forearm bleeds from the lightning quick bite of his bowstring, then he can collapse into exhausted, dreamless unconsciousness. It’s working pretty well, in fact, until Tony fucking Stark shows up one night while he’s slouched against a bullseye in the range, and drags him forcefully into wakefulness.

He brings coffee though, so that’s something. Clint accepts the mug, bracing himself for the flood of invasive, prying questions he’s sure is coming.

But Stark just sits there with him in silence. Finally, he makes a jerky, abortive gesture towards a package resting at Clint’s feet that definitely hadn’t been there earlier. “So I got bored with sifting through rubble and lifting girders like a glorified crane – saving the world from aliens should mean showering us in medals and models, what is the world coming to, I ask you – and upgraded your arrows. Saw those exploding ones you had at the final battle and whatever incompetent asswipe designed them, you can do better. Higher precision, bigger bang. Knock yourself out testing those badboys, and I’ll see what I can do about your grappling arrows.”

For the first time Clint looks at his face, really looks, and sees the dark circles under his eyes, the tired lines and dull pallor to his skin. He’s not the only one that’s shit at dealing with loss, then.

He nods sharply and tries for a reassuring smile, but it’s all wrong on his face. Stark’s answering grin is just as unconvincing.

They sit for a few more minutes in companionable silence before SHIELD’s resident genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist wanders off to go run himself into the ground elsewhere. But the silence in the range is less stifling after that and a couple times a week Tony drops by to foist another quiver of newer and deadlier arrows on Clint.

It’s not quite coping, but it’s something and at this point, Clint will take what he can get.

*

Natasha is worried about him, he can tell. Her face betrays nothing, but he sees it in the way her fists clench, in the tense lines of her arms, like she wants to reach out and offer comfort but can’t bring herself to do it. For the Black Widow, this is tantamount to enveloping him in a crushing hug. Nat doesn’t hug him, but instead she slips him the bottle of expensive Russian vodka she keeps stashed in her quarters. He appreciates the gesture.

He appreciates it less later that night, when the empty bottle slips from his listless fingers and his room sways violently around him. In the dark, Clint clambers out of his chair and tries to stumble towards the bed, ending up sprawled half on top of it, legs dangling over the edge.

He falls asleep.

His nightmares are full of piles of bodies, arrows sticking out from their chests; hands, clawing desperately at his wrists, as his own hands (are they his, he doesn’t remember moving them) tighten around a fellow agent’s neck; Natasha lays crumpled on the ground (get up, Nat, _get up_ –) limbs bent at unnatural angles, eyes wide and unblinking; Phil, slumped against a wall, bleeding out, and his blood is all over Clint’s hands, gushing, _pouring_ from between his fingers –

When he wakes up (is he awake?) the world is drenched in crimson, pools of it swirling on the floor of his quarters, rivers of it cascading down the walls, and his breath comes faster, chest rising and falling frantically. He can’t outrun his nightmares –

“Well, well, well,” a figure, cloaked in darkness separates itself from the shadows. “Young blood runs hot with despair. Or perhaps you would call it… love.”

Clint throws himself from the bed, lunging for his bow against the wall, but the second he touches it, the smooth material turns to scales in his hand and suddenly he’s holding a hissing snake. He drops it in shock, watching out of the corner of his eye as it slithers under the bed. His attention remains focused on the intruder in his room, however.

“Who the _fucking_ fuck are you?” he demands, projecting more confidence than he feels.

The cloak falls away with a burst of fire (Clint can feel the heat of it on his face– what the _hell_ –) and suddenly there is a man standing in front of him, if it can be called a man, skin stained red like muscle and sinew laid bare, raw and angry. His outstretched hands end in gnarled talons, thin lips curling back to expose a mouth full of too many teeth, each one curved into a wicked point. The apparition’s fiery hair whips back and forth in a non-existent breeze and his eyes – they glow _blood red_.

They burn Clint’s skin like a brand, searing his veins with terror.

It’s like a demon, straight out of hell. He’s never been a religious person, but in this moment, Clint thinks he might just be beginning to understand (repent, _repent_ ). When the creature speaks, his voice is like nails on a chalkboard, but somehow deeper: a rumbling, grating screech of noise. It’s not a sound that human ears are meant to hear.

“Your people have many names for me: the serpent, great deceiver, father of lies, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan. However, you may call me… Mephisto.”

“You mean to tell me,” Clint begins, pushing all the haughty skepticism he can muster into his tone, “that you’re the _Devil_? Are you _serious_ right now?”

Mephisto’s response is withering, though the twist to his lips is wry. “I am not the Devil of any of your earthly mythologies. And yet… all stories have some basis in reality, do they not?”

Clint wishes he still had the comforting weight of his bow in his hands, if only to prevent them from shaking. “What are you doing here – come to tempt me, steal my soul? ‘Cause I hate to tell you, but there is nothing on Earth that could coerce me into making a deal with you. I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Well,” there’s a glint in the devil’s blazing eyes that looks something like triumph. “It’s fortunate that what I am offering you is no longer bound to this Earth, then. You see, you have all the time in the world, Clint Barton.”

He startles at hearing his name spoken in those sibilant tones and Mephisto’s smirk deepens.

“But _he_ , the one whom you wish to save… he has none at _all_.”

Clint’s blood runs cold. “You– no, you can’t possibly… _Phil_ –”

“You pitiful mortals,” the demon laughs like wildfire, scathing and all-consuming. “What is it like to be so helpless against the eddying tides of the universe? For dust you are and unto dust you shall return, in the end. What are you, Clint Barton, but a man condemned to die, to shuffle off this mortal coil with as little dignity as you entered it? You _wretches_ cannot shape your destinies, nor alter your fate. Yet I… _can_.”

Mephisto begins to advance with long, predatory strides, and it takes all of Clint’s self-control not to flinch back. “What do you mean, you _can_?” he demands. “You can _save_ him? He’s _dead_ and nothing can bring him back. How do you even know–”

“I am always here, biding my time in the shadows, listening to the darkest, most secret murmurs in the hearts of mankind. And sometimes, as I look upon the earth and you who cover it like a pestilence, some lost, departed soul gets caught in my net. It is sufficiently rare, however, that I acquire a soul with quite as much merit as this one.”

“You have his _soul_? What does that mean – _where is he_?”

The devil stops right in front of Clint and studies his grotesque nails as he answers, indifferently: “Rotting away in my very own little corner of Hell. Or what you pathetic humans, with your limited understanding of the higher and lower dimensions, might call Hell, at any rate.”

“ _Why_? Why take his soul at all, how can this possibly benefit you?” Clint tries to reason, but his mind is a mess of whirling thoughts, full of dangerous possibility. He attempts to crush the burgeoning hope in his chest, but it’s impossible.

Mephisto’s mouth is a gash of sardonic disdain on his nightmarish face. “They say that it is the only comfort of the wretched, to have others share in their misery. One cannot rule a Hell with no souls of the damned to reside in it.”

“Is that what you want in exchange then? My soul for his?”

“Souls are petty, trifling things. Much as it pleases me to enlarge my kingdom… it is a dull prospect. And one as valiant as this, the soul of a hero,” Mephisto sneers in contempt, “who died fighting, selflessly defending, his allies… well, he would suffer nobly for all eternity and never break. Better to make a bargain, let his righteousness putrefy and transform into bitterness at his lot, wait until he has fallen so far and lost so much that his heart becomes _black_ and _twisted_ with _anguish_ … and then, _then_ I will return to collect what is owed me.”

Clint shudders and squares his shoulders, forcing himself to stand his ground. “So what do you _want_? If you’re not after my soul, then _what_?”

“All I want – in exchange for returning Phil Coulson to you, exactly as he was – is one tiny, inconsequential thing,” Mephisto cajoles. “Your target.”

The words make no sense. He opens his mouth to ask – but then he realizes that he really doesn’t give a fuck. Because he knows what his response is going to be already.

“Deal.”

Mephisto smirks at him and as Clint clasps his scarlet, clawed hand to seal their agreement, he has a sudden, inexplicable sense of vertigo: his knees give out, his stomach somersaults into his throat and his heart –

The world goes black.

*

Clint wakes up on the floor. For a moment he thinks it was all just a bizarre, vodka-induced hallucination (and he’s ready to swear off vodka forever, no matter what Nat has to say about that).

Then he sees the body lying in his bed. His heart pounds frantically against his ribcage, sure that he’s still trapped in the nightmare–

But there’s no blood. Coulson’s shirt is crisp and white, his suit and tie are immaculate and unwrinkled. His shoes even look polished. His skin is pink and healthy. His eyes–

Are open. Blinking in the morning sunlight, awake, _alive_ –

“Clint,” Agent Coulson’s sharp voice breaks through the chaotic churning of his thoughts. “What the _hell_ is going on?”

His only response is to burst into hysterical laughter. He’s still giggling when the door bursts open and the room is flooded with SHIELD agents, Director Fury and Agent Romanoff leading the charge.

*

“Agent Barton, I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation,” Fury’s brow is furrowed, expression inscrutable.

He and the Black Widow stand side by side across the table from Clint as he tries for a casual slouch in the room’s single, uncomfortable, metal chair. They’ve re-appropriated one of the interrogation rooms for his debrief – Clint isn’t sure if it’s for his safety or for theirs.

“Clint, we lost the security feed to your quarters and when we tried to break down the door, it was protected by a barrier,” Natasha plants her hands on the table and the barely restrained anger in her movements makes him meet her eyes at last. She is _pissed_. “After we finally got through, we found you laughing over the miraculously back-from-the-dead body of your former handler. And now you refuse to even tell us what happened? You’ve got to give me _something_ here.”

He looks down at the table before reluctantly admitting, “I don’t think you would believe me if I told you.”

The look Fury levels at him is supremely unimpressed. “Try us.”

“Well, he called himself Mephisto…”

*

It’s hours later that they finally let him out, after countless tests for foreign contaminants in his system and a psych eval to make sure he hasn’t been otherwise compromised. He appreciates their ruthless attention to detail, but the whole thing is exhausting and he just wants to sleep for years at this point.

As he closes the door behind him, he hears the sound it makes echoed in a second click down the hall. He looks up.

Coulson is standing there, just outside the next interrogation room, his face a complicated mess of emotions. For a moment, something in Clint’s chest twists but then it’s gone.

He closes the distance between them and claps Coulson on the shoulder with a grin. “Well, I’m glad you’re back, boss!”

He misses the dumbstruck look that the agent gives his retreating back as he walks away.

*

Time seems to pass in jumps and starts after that until, days later, when he finds Natasha standing outside his door. She crosses her arms and lets her lips twist into a frown as she stares him down.

"Clint, what have you been doing in here? The logs say you haven't left your quarters since that day. Have you been avoiding-"

"I haven't been avoiding anyone," he cuts her off. "I've just been catching up on paperwork, that's all."

The looks she gives him is skeptical at best. "Paperwork. You haven't been down to the shooting range in days because you've been doing paperwork?"

He gives a start, turning to where his bow and quiver lean against the wall, where they've been sitting untouched. "I guess I just got sidetracked and forgot."

"You forgot."

“Well, yeah,” Clint shifts from one foot to the other, uncomfortable with the level of scrutiny Natasha is studying him with.

“Since the day I met you, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go more than a day without your bow. Junior agents have had to pry you away from the range before. And you expect me to believe that you just _forgot_?”

“Look, it’s not a big deal. Let’s go right now, if you think I’m shirking my duties that much,” he snags both his bow and quiver before side-stepping her and making his way towards the elevator.

“That’s not what I–” Natasha trails off with a sigh and moves to follow him.

*

He nocks the arrow. Takes aim. And lets fly.

The arrow doesn’t even hit the target.

*

The Black Widow is concerned. He’s Hawkeye after all: he never misses.

After a couple of hours at the shooting range, he’s hitting the target with something close to his usual accuracy. Clint puts it down to his unsettling encounter with what may or may not have been the Devil and a couple days of not practicing archery. He shrugs it off.

*

A week later and it’s business as usual: between battling super villains with the Avengers and the occasional solo mission with SHIELD, Clint doesn’t have any downtime. So it’s perhaps not surprising that he doesn’t get a chance to really talk to Coulson until they run into each other in the hall at HQ – literally.

Clint chuckles as he picks up his scattered arrows. “Going somewhere, boss?”

“Oh, the usual,” the agent mutters, trying to force his files into some semblance of order.

Stowing his arrows back in their quiver, Clint starts helping gather up the fallen papers as well. There’s a weird moment where they both reach for the same file and their eyes meet, some strange intensity in Coulson’s gaze. But Clint pulls back abruptly and stands, already moving to leave.

“Well, gotta run, be seeing you around,” he calls over his should with a careless wave.

“Clint, wait. Why did you do it?” Coulson doesn’t offer any clarification and Hawkeye doesn’t ask for any. He’s known this conversation was coming.

Clint looks him in the eye and, with a gut-wrenching conviction that he doesn’t understand, replies, “I don’t know.”

*

He has this memory. It’s been cropping up in his dreams recently, in the hours he spends tossing and turning between restless sleep and exhausted wakefulness. It seems important, he just can’t remember why.

It’s the mission he, Natasha and Coulson went on in Budapest.

They were in Budapest, a month before a hammer fell from the sky and Clint’s world turned upside down. And seriously, fuck off Natasha, Budapest was a nightmare. Except, there was that one moment, in the middle of the firefight…

The Black Widow is cutting through the ranks of Hydra agents pouring from the secret base they’ve uncovered while Clint and Coulson snipe off the stragglers. They’re taking cover behind a pile of debris, leaning around each other to fire bullets and arrows into the fray as the ground beneath their feet shakes with explosions. Finally, the entire base goes up in flames and the two of them share a quick glance, Coulson evaluating their position and Hawkeye waiting for his word.

“Go, give Widow some back up,” the agent decides. “I’ve got your back.”

Clint slants him a cocky grin, adrenaline pumping, and suddenly, overwhelmed by a wave of some emotion he doesn’t want to look at too closely, he clasps Phil’s arm. He sees the target rising up in front of him, feels himself careening towards it, can’t stop his own momentum when he says: “Listen, if we manage to get through this, it’ll be a miracle. When we get back to base, there’s something I want to say to you, all right? Don’t die on me out here.”

The look Coulson gives him is utterly deadpan and unimpressed. “Are we having a moment, Barton?”

“Fuck you too, Phil,” Cint tosses him an archer’s salute before he vaults over the debris but he can’t stop the smile that steals onto his face as he joins Natasha in the thick of the fight.

When they get back to the hotel where they’ve set up camp, however, there are already instructions from their fearless leader waiting for them.

Coulson skims the encoded documents wearily. “I know we were supposed to have some down-time, but Fury’s calling the Black Widow and I back in. There’s a situation with Stark. We leave in the morning.”

“Fucking Stark,” Clint grumbles before giving Phil a rakish grin. “Well, go save the world then. I’ll be there when you get back.”

It can wait. These feelings… well. They’re not going anywhere any time soon. When Phil gets back from New Mexico, Clint will tell him. And maybe, just maybe, when he asks him out to dinner, Phil will say yes.

_fin._


End file.
